Revised 10/29/14

Luke Skywalker closed his eyes tight, trying to block any Force intrusions from his mind. He felt like a coward—hiding in a dark corner from none other than his own father—but he couldn't fight the presence of anger like he thought he could. He wasn't ready. How could he have even thought that he was ready for this?

The Jedi Knight heard Darth Vader's footsteps pacing around the room. He heard his mechanical breathing and the hum of his lightsaber.

"You cannot hide forever, Luke," Vader taunted, sounding farther away than Luke thought he was, giving him enough courage to reply.

"I will not fight."

"Give yourself to the Dark Side," the Sith continued. It is the only way you can save your friends.

No it's not, Luke told himself. He wouldn't let his mind be fooled. No, it's not.

"Yes," Vader encouraged, likely knowing exactly what Luke was trying to convince himself of. "Your thoughts betray you."

Leia. Tess. Han. The names played over and over in his mind. He hoped thinking of them would help him resist the anger. The temptation of the Dark Side. Leia. My twin sister. Leia.

"Your feelings for them are strong," Vader observed, clearly reading Luke's thoughts like a book. "Especially for…"

No.

"Sister."

NO! Luke scolded himself. He could almost feel Darth Vader grinning with satisfaction under his black mask. All this time he had hoped his father only knew about him, not Leia.

"So you have a twin sister," taunted the Sith. "Your feelings have now betrayed her, too. Obi-Wan was wise to hide her from me. Now his failure is complete. If you will not turn to the Dark Side, then perhaps she—"

Just as Luke was about to jump up in anger and attack his father, he heard a familiar shout, followed by a flood of an equally familiar Force presence.

"NO!"

Tess Naberrie suddenly bolted out of the darkness, blue-green lightsaber in hand. She smashed her lightsaber in Vader's direction. Vader expertly blocked the attack.

Luke jumped to his feet to come to Tess' aid. Before he could reach her, though, her lightsaber flew out of her hand. It shocked the Padawaan enough to give Vader the opportunity to grab her, restraining her with his free hand and holding his lightsaber at her neck with the other. Luke froze.

From the other side of the room, a cackle echoed off the curved walls. Vader, Luke, and Tess all turned towards one of the sets of stairs, where the Emperor slowly descended.

"Finally!" he chuckled, clapping his gray, wrinkled hands together. "The family reunites. What a picture."

"Let her go," Luke begged, addressing the Emperor and not his father. "Please, she has nothing to do with this."

"I must confess that I disagree, young Jedi," Palpatine said, turning Tess' lightsaber around in his hands. His eerie grin was unfaltering and inherently evil.

"Family?" Tess murmured from beneath the lightsaber at her neck. The heat of the weapon was beginning to burn her, no matter how far she recoiled into Vader's suit. Her mind was still wrapping around what she overheard—that Luke and Leia were brother and sister. Though something told her it was more than that.

Suddenly, the puzzle pieces merged themselves together in Tess' mind.

"When we were leaving Bespin…" Tess began. When he was recovering from his fight with Vader, he kept muttering about his father. And Vader. Until now, she thought he was just delusional.

"Lord Vader is young Skywalker's father," the Emperor confirmed. He waved at Vader, gesturing for his apprentice to lower the lightsaber from Tess' throat. "But there is more than meets the eye to this little arrangement. The father. The son. And…what are you?"

"Just an experiment," Tess snarled. "Remember?"

"Tess…" Luke warned.

"Your creation was far more…interesting than a simple experiment," Palpatine informed them. Tess felt the room tighten with uncertainty, even from Vader. "I've been expecting you, child."

The brunette clenched her teeth, looking the Emperor straight in the eye. Her brow furrowed, her mind swirling with questions and fears and slowly tying related elements together.

"It wasn't a coincidence that you found me on Endor," Tess deduced. "Or that I got here so easily. It was a test."

"A test would imply that you could pass or fail." The Emperor neared the girl. "That you could have avoided this. But that is not true. Destiny has brought us together on the day your friends all die for a purpose."

"I won't let you hurt them."

Emperor laughed. "If it is a fight you want, a fight you shall get. I will not expect any less from you. Destruction is exactly what you were created for."

"Don't listen to him," Luke reminded the girl. "You know who you are."

Tess' eyes went from Luke to Emperor Palpatine. Reaching—grasping with the Force—throwing out a rope and hoping something caught onto the end. What was missing? Something didn't make sense. The pieces of truth were here, but broken and scattered all over the room. There were shards in each of them. She shut her eyes tight.

"Tess—" Luke began.

"Don't interrupt her," the Emperor instructed. "She is close to the truth."

The chamber room fell silent. So silent you could hear the gentle hum of the Death Star's engines pulsing under their feet. The rumble of the temperature control kicking on. The click of Darth Vader's boots against the floor as circled around the fifteen-year-old.

When she opened her eyes, Vader was looking down at her.

And then she knew.

"She has it," the Emperor announced, again clapping his pruned, long fingers together in applause. "Now do share—what connects us all?"

"Padme Naberrie," Tess answered firmly. Her eyes remained locked on Vader. She could not see the half-machine's own eyes, but she was sure that they were on her, too. As if both trying to put a name to a face long forgotten.

"Good!" Palpatine cackled. He took two slow steps towards his apprentice. "The child sees right through you, Lord Vader. Now, how is that possible?"

Tess gulped. That was her question, but she didn't know if she was ready for the answer. She remembered her conversation with Leia.

"There's this emptiness—almost a darkness, and…it seems like—I don't know…"

The emptiness was a wall. Something blocking her from a truth too painful to face. Every time she got near it she felt herself slip away, replaced with a tempting strength that could swallow her whole if she just reached out to take it.

"You are curious about your connection to the Force," Palpatine reasoned with unnerving certainty.

"Is…" Tess took a deep breath before continuing. "Is Vader my father, too?"

Emperor Palpatine let out a long cackle, while the others just waited for him to confirm or deny the suggestion.

"Senator Organa was an imbecile," Palpatine spat, getting great enjoyment out of this entire situation. Vader still restrained Tess, and she could feel him tensing up. Was he really as unaware of this as Tess and Luke? "He thought he was being secretive, but I see everything in the galaxy. I knew about Organa's creation as soon as it was requested." Palpatine gave Vader a look, still sadistically grinning.

"And forgive me, Lord Vader, for telling you this only now, but I've known about your twins' survival all along. I also knew that, should he ever discover his children, he would take them in as his apprentices use them to defeat me." The Emperor gave Tess a gaze that sent chills up her spine and down her arms. He stepped towards her and put a rough hand to her cheek.

"So I made my own apprentice. With the beauty of his former love… and the power greater than all of the Skywalkers combined. From me."